Krugman vs. Krugman

Paul Krugman, the hyper-partisan columnist for the New York Times, must have been a competent economist at one time. But those days are so far in the past that even Krugman apparently can no longer remember them. James Taranto documents the extent of Krugman’s amnesia:

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”:

Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

“What Democrats believe,” he says “is what textbook economics says”:

But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”

Krugman scoffs: “To me, that’s a bizarre point of view–but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.”
What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called “Macroeconomics”:

Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.

So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl’s “bizarre point of view” is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.

As I’ve said before, only the existence of Frank Rich prevents Krugman from being the world’s worst columnist.